Emotions; (re)construction; social work; reflection; coping; defence mechanisms

Social work is an emotionally stressful profession and social workers are expected to cope with their emotions according to the practice requirements.Numerousauthorsanticipatethatreflexivityinrelation toone´sownemotionsisabsolutelyessentialforqualityexecutionof social work. However, there are opinions that believe that even the ability not to reflect in some (primarily demanding) situations of social work practice is also essential to cope with them. In this context, the paper aims at understanding the use of reflexivity in the strategies of construction and reconstruction of emotions in social work with families. In order to meet this objective, a qualitative research strategy has been used, particularly semistructured interviews with 30 social workers. The acquired data describes the strategies using emotions (re)construction (internal supervision, effective persona, reflexive obsession), as well as not using reflexivity (defensive self). The created data are inserted in the context of coping and defence mechanisms, and implications for practice, education and research in social work are discussed.